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Lecture 14:
Mind & Reality
\def \ititle {Lecture 14}
\def \isubtitle {Mind & Reality}
\begin{center}
{\Large
\textbf{\ititle}: \isubtitle
}
\iemail %
\end{center}
\section{Biological Continuity}
\emph{Reading:} §Olson, E. T. (1997). The human animal: Personal identity without psychology. Oxford Uni- versity Press, Oxford.
You and I are biological organisms.
[Olson’s formulation] If a person exists at one time and something exists at another time,
under what possible circumstances is it the case that the person is the thing?
Answer 2: biological continuity
\emph{The Biological Criterion of Personal Identity:}
Necessarily, a person existing at one time is a thing existing at another time if and only if the first mentioned person’s biological organism is continuous with the second thing’s biological organism.
Tom and Ayesha swapped brains for just one day.
Each has always been curious what it would be like to inhabit the others’ body.
On that day, a person we will call ‘Ayesha-body’ robs a bank.
As night falls, Tom and Ayesha swap brains back, as agreed.
Who is morally repsonsible for the bank robbery?
Is it Tom?
Or is it Ayesha?
Or neither of them?
Tom is morally repsonsible for the bank robbery.
You are only responsible for actions performed by things numerically identical with you.
Therefore:
Tom was Ayesha-body.
But:
Tom’s biological organism is not continuous with Ayesha-body’s biological organism.
Therefore:
The Biological Continuity View of personal identity is false.
Sam was an embryo; unless she recovers, Sam will be in a PVS.
Person essentialism is true.
Necessarily, a person x existing at one time is a person y existing at
another time if and only if x can, at the first time,
remember an experience y has at the second time, or vice versa.
Inconsistent Triad:
\begin{enumerate}
\item If Sam and Ayesha were to swap brains for a day,
Sam would later be morally responsible for actions involving
Ayesha-body.
\item You are only responsible for the actions of things
numerically identical with you.
\item The Biological Continuity View of personal identity is true.
\end{enumerate}
If Tom and Ayesha were to swap brains for a day,
Tom would later be morally responsible for actions involving
Ayesha-body.
You are only responsible for the actions of things
numerically identical with you.
The Biological Continuity View of personal identity is true.
/ex/TorF/qq/Tom is morally responsible for the bank robbery.|Ayesha is morally responsible for the bank robbery.|Neither Tom nor Ayesha is morally responsible for the bank robbery.
/ex/q/What is the biological continuity view of personal identity? State the core idea in a single sentence. (Copy-paste is ok as long as you understand what you are pasting.)
\section{Does Identity Matter?}
\emph{Reading:} § Olson, E. T. (1997). The human animal: Personal identity without psychology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
biological continuity and responsibility
If ‘the relations of practical concerns that typically go along with our identity through time are closely connected with psychological continuity
[...], then the Biological Approach does have an interesting ethical consequence,
namely that those practical relations are not necessarily connected with numerical identity’
\citep[p.~70]{olson:1999_human}.
If ‘practical concerns are closely connected with psychological continuity
[...], then the Biological Approach does have an ethical consequence,
namely that those practical relations are not necessarily connected with numerical identity’
\citep[p.~70]{olson:1999_human}.
Olson 1997, p. 70
Do you ever feel like philosophers could be less wordy?
EXercise: take your pen and delete some words.
Sam was an embryo; unless she recovers, Sam will be in a PVS.
Person essentialism is true.
The Psychological Continuity View of personal identity is true.
If Tom and Ayesha were to swap brains for a day,
Tom would later be morally responsible for actions involving
Ayesha-body.
You are only responsible for the actions of things
numerically identical with you.
The Biological Continuity View of personal identity is true.
Which claim is Olson denying?
If ‘practical concerns are closely connected with psychological continuity
[...], then the Biological Approach does have an ethical consequence,
namely that those practical relations are not necessarily connected with numerical identity’
\citep[p.~70]{olson:1999_human}.
Olson 1997, p. 70
Psychological Continuity and Fission
\section{Psychological Continuity and Fission}
\emph{Reading:} §Shoemaker, D. (2019). Personal Identity and Ethics. In Zalta, E. N., editor, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, winter 2019 edition.
Inconsistent quartet, personal identity:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Beatrice is not identical to Caitlyn.
\item Ahmed is psychologically continuous with Beatrice.
\item Ahmed is psychologically continuous with Caitlyn.
\item The Psychological Continuity View of personal identity is true.
\end{enumerate}
numerical identity : inconsistent triad
Beatrice is not identical to Caitlyn.
Ahmed is identical to Beatrice.
Ahmed is identical to Caitlyn.
personal identity : inconsistent quartet
Beatrice is not identical to Caitlyn.
Ahmed is psychologically continuous with Beatrice.
Ahmed is psychologically continuous with Caitlyn.
The Psychological Continuity View of personal identity is true.
Work out what this quartet is inconsistent
so?
If fission is possible, the Psychological Continuity View of personal identity is false.
Following, roughly, \citet{johnston:1989_fission}.
1. The removal of one brain hemisphere would not break psychological continuity.
2a. You might have an identical twin whose brain had been removed.
2b. Your brain could be transplanted into the body of your debrained twin.
2c. Successfully transplanting your brain into your twin’s debrained body would ensure psychological continuity.
2d. The removal and destruction of one brain hemisphere followed by transplant of the other hemisphere would ensure psychological continuity.
3. You could be psychologically continuous with two distinct future individuals.
psychological continuity and fission
[Olson’s formulation] If a person exists at one time and something exists at another time,
under what possible circumstances is it the case that the person is the thing?
Answer 1: psychological continuity
Under exactly those in which the person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned thing has at the second time, or vice versa.
If fission is possible, the Psychological Continuity View of personal identity is false.
Fission is possible.
‘What this must mean, then, is that the identity relation just is not what
matters (or is not what matters very much) in survival;
instead, what
matters has to consist in psychological continuity and/or connectedness
(what Parfit calls “Relation R”).
As long as that relation holds between
me-now and some other person-stage---regardless of whether or not it holds
one-one---what happens to me is just as good as ordinary survival.
Call
this the Identity Doesn't Matter (IDM) view.’
\citep{shoemaker:2019_personal}
‘What this must mean, then, is that the identity relation just is not what
matters (or is not what matters very much) in survival;
instead, what
matters has to consist in psychological continuity and/or connectedness
(what Parfit calls “Relation R”).
As long as that relation holds between
me-now and some other person-stage---regardless of whether or not it holds
one-one---what happens to me is just as good as ordinary survival.
Call
this the Identity Doesn't Matter (IDM) view.’
Shoemaker, 2019
\citep{shoemaker:2019_personal}
\section{Conclusion}
\emph{Reading:} §(hard) Sider, T. (2001). Criteria of Personal Identity and the Limits of Conceptual Analysis. Nouˆs, 35(s15):189–209
conclusion
In conclusion, ...
[Olson’s formulation] If a person exists at one time and something exists at another time,
under what possible circumstances is it the case that the person is the thing?
Answer 1: psychological continuity
Under exactly those in which the person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned thing has at the second time, or vice versa.
Answer 2: biological continuity
Under exactly those in which the person’s biological organism is continuous with the second thing’s biological organism.
recall this quote from the very start of our discussion ...
‘Identity is utterly simple and unproblematic.
Everything is identical to
itself; nothing is ever identical to anything else except itself.
There is
never any problem about what makes something identical to itself;
nothing can ever fail to be.
And there is never any problem about what makes two things identical;
two things never can be identical.’
Lewis, 1989 pp. 192--3
